Thomson, Campbell; (2025) Understanding Freedom Movement Activism in the United Kingdom. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Text Campbell Thomson UCL thesis.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 June 2027. Download (7MB)

Abstract

Centred on a year of ethnographic fieldwork conducted around the United Kingdom and via social media platforms such as Telegram, this thesis seeks to better understand the multifarious forms of Freedom Movement activism which have emerged since March 2020. A “conspiracy attuned” social movement, the Movement first coalesced in opposition to COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccination programmes. It has since embedded itself as a self-recognising network of campaign groups, political parties and “off-grid” communities. Alongside ongoing claims of COVID-19 vaccine harms, the Movement organises in opposition to issues such as Low Emission Zones (LEZ) and 15-Minute City” schemes, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and “chemtrail” sightings. Freedom Movement members share a sense of living through a time of polycrisis, in terms of an (allegedly) unfolding “Great Reset” – a secretive plot to abolish national democracies and establish a technocratic world government. I utilise data collected from semi-structured and unstructured interviews with activists, as well as participant observation in digital spaces and attendance at political marches and rallies, public talks and street stall “outreach” events. I reflect upon my positionality as an “unawakened” researcher inhabiting spaces of distrust towards “mainstream” academia. In doing so, I discuss my decision to publish my writing in the conspiracy newspaper The Light. Making use of Elizabeth Davis’s conception of ‘conspiracy attunement’ (2025), I suggest that Movement members perceive in present-day events reverberations of alleged “COVID-times” conspiracy and cover-up. I highlight individual and collective narratives of being/becoming “awake,” as a “hinge concept” upon which identification with the Movement is predicated. I suggest that thinking in terms of attunement and awakening can shape engagements with digitally mediated, conspiracy attuned activism elsewhere. The thesis makes contributions to the anthropology of digital politics by demonstrating how conspiratorial narratives are normalised through critical reformulation, or “memeing,” of “mainstream” knowledge claims.

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